The Seductive Pretty Boy of the Matriarchal World-Chapter 70: Mua!

Chapter 70: Mua!

The next morning Serena Blackwood woke up and, for the first time ever, offered to drive Elias Kane to Westbridge University herself.

Elias was in the middle of pulling a shirt over his head when her words hit him. He froze mid-motion, finished dressing, then turned and shot her a glance. The raw shock in his green eyes wasn’t faked in the slightest.

Twenty-eight percent favorability and she’s suddenly playing chauffeur? Even after everything that had happened the night before, that number barely justified this sudden burst of doting. Right. Just empty words.

Elias schooled his expression back to cool indifference.

Serena met that skeptical stare without a flicker of guilt. Her voice stayed soft, almost tender. "I never felt like driving you before, but now I do. There’s no contradiction there."

Sure, and right now you look like you’d rather do anything else.

Elias politely turned down the hollow gesture.

That wasn’t even the main reason, barely qualified as one at all.

The real issue was the very real possibility that if Serena dropped him at the campus gates, Giselle Frost would be right there. The two of them would collide head-on with no one to keep the scales balanced. Without Liora Voss playing her usual role of chaotic mediator, things could spiral into something irreversible in seconds.

Unleashed dogs were dangerous, after all, and their owners ended up carrying the legal fallout.

Of course Elias had no leash on himself either, so the safest move was to keep the two elite predators from crossing paths again. Not yet. The bloodbath could wait.

He left the presidential suite alone and took the subway to Westbridge, one hand slipping inside the inner pocket of his jacket to brush the black card resting against his chest. A quiet wave of relief settled over him. Thank god the capitalist queen still understood the sacred importance of money; at least she’d returned the card instead of keeping it as some twisted trophy.

Otherwise he would have marched straight back and made sure those two actually did throw down right there in the lobby.

Back on campus, the memory of his schedule finally resurfaced. No classes today. And there was something else—something important—he had completely forgotten.

[ Lucien Hart’s birthday? ]

Elias snapped his fingers. "How the hell did I forget that?"

Today was Lucien Hart’s birthday. Serena, Giselle, and Liora would all be gathering to celebrate. Since Lucien was overseas, thousands of miles away, the solution was simple: a video call, the same way executives ran remote meetings—except the agenda was cake and well-wishes instead of quarterly reports.

Liora might not carry a torch for Lucien anymore, but she had known him since childhood. Skipping the virtual party wasn’t an option.

And with no lectures on the calendar, that meant Elias had an entire day stretching from now until evening with zero interruptions.

Any normal college student would have been ecstatic about an unexpected holiday like this. The kind of gift you couldn’t put a price on.

Elias felt nothing but hollow irritation. He could tolerate short stretches of waiting, but a full day of absolute idleness—no contact with any of those women—felt like torture. The system didn’t reward emptiness, and neither did his own survival instincts.

The only one who might still be reachable was Liora. He could already picture it: her typing back while that sharp, mocking curve lifted the corner of her mouth. Every mention of Lucien would serve as a fresh reminder that Elias was the impostor who had taken the place of her unattainable white-moonlight ideal.

The kind of stimulation Elias delivered to her was calculated, precise. He refused to let her stumble across her own private amusement by accident.

Giselle would be tied up until the birthday call ended. Serena, still riding the afterglow of last night’s "sage mode," would probably ignore him entirely and brush off any follow-up with a curt "I’m working."

Classic Serena behavior.

With zero wool to shear from that trio, Elias pivoted to a new target.

Seraphina Hale? No chance. She was on set somewhere, location unknown. Even if he tracked down the filming site, showing up would get him pegged as a rabid fan and probably land him on some trending list by sundown.

Yvonne Quinn?

His eyes brightened for half a second before practicality crashed back in. Yvonne was even busier than Seraphina—surgery after surgery stacked back-to-back. The odds of catching even a glimpse of her were slim to none.

Still... fate had worked before.

"Not the worst idea..."

He turned on his heel and headed straight off campus toward the hospital. Even if he struck out completely, at least he would have tried. In this final world before retirement, he still threw himself into every single day with the same relentless drive.

He hadn’t laid eyes on his foster father once since arriving here.

That realization hardened his steps even more.

He was banking on the invisible pull between him and the doctor sister.

Worst case, he could at least tick off the "dutiful son" achievement.

[ That doesn’t sound like a great achievement... ]

"You wouldn’t get it," Elias muttered under his breath. "Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. Completing it is what counts."

He figured if the Trash Trope Intervention Division ever rolled out a proper achievement system, half the operatives would grind themselves into the ground just to hit one-hundred percent. Not him, of course. He had standards.

By the time he reached Longhaven Hospital, it dawned on him that he had no clue which room Arthur Hale was in.

Zero embarrassment. He pulled out his phone and fired a message to the resident chaos agent.

Elias Kane: Where’s my dad?

The reply came almost instantly.

Liora Voss: 18th floor. Elevator, right turn, another right turn, end of the hallway.

"Mua!" Elias switched to voice mode and sent the exaggerated kiss without hesitation, then layered on the fake concern. "You still busy? When do you have some free time?"

Liora stared at the string of messages, a low, private laugh bubbling inside her chest at the sheer, screen-bleeding obviousness of the performance.

Why exactly was Elias suddenly visiting the hospital?

To see his foster father? Please. A son who didn’t even know the room number wasn’t exactly overflowing with filial urgency.

No, this was almost certainly about that... doctor.

If she took her eyes off him for even a second, he found a new way to chase fresh skirts. Really...

Her smile thinned. She shook her head, tilting her ear toward the voice message about to play.

Before the audio could start, Serena Blackwood appeared at her side, voice light and amused. "Who are you texting that’s got you smiling like that?"

At that exact moment the sugary-sweet "mua!" spilled from the speaker, loud enough for both of them to hear.